Public Phone Boxes in the UK

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Exercise 2B, page 12. The era of the telephone kiosk is coming to an end. BT, the British telephone company owner of the vast majority, has seen its profits from payphones fall by half since 1999. They’ve got thousands that don’t make enough to cover their cleaning costs. Between 10,000 and 12,000 are disappearing this year, and almost certainly more will follow.

Only one adult in nine still uses payphones with any frequency, most preferring the convenience of their own mobile phone. The British public telephone kiosk was the first in the world. It was introduced in 1884, only eight years after the invention of the telephone itself by the Scotsman, Alexander Graham Bell. The public call office, as it was known back then, was a typical Victorian invention, using new technology to make money from a society which was moving faster and faster, and had started relying on communications to a great degree. At first, public call offices were placed in shops, with only a curtain separating their users from the general customers.

The callers did not feel comfortable with their conversations being overheard, and shop opening hours were restricted, so the telephone soon moved outside onto the streets. They were housed in wooden kiosks. In 1924, a large competition was held to design a new, standard public telephone kiosk. The winner was Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Battersea Power Station and Liverpool Cathedral, and his design had a distinctly historic quality. A heavy shell of glass and cast iron, neo-classical columns at the corners, and a high arching roof.

It was just a phone box, but it had hopes to establish itself as part of the British culture, like the British police helmet, post-box and double-decker bus, and all the other internationally successful symbols of Britishness, which were manufactured between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. The only mistake Scott made was over the colour. He wanted his phone boxes to be painted silver. Pillar box red was chosen instead, because it was much more visible, and dirt didn’t look too bad on it. Between the mid-80s and the end of the 90s, far from disappearing, British telephone kiosks actually doubled in number.

The commercial pressures created by privatisation pushed BT’s phone boxes into brand new locations. Meanwhile, other telephone companies began introducing their own kiosks. They started selling phone cards, phone boxes became more reliable, and the spread of the mobile phone simply seemed to increase the demand for telephones generally. But it was not to last. Nowadays, BT is hoping to use its remaining payphones as internet kiosks.

Since August, a thousand of these have been put up, with 27,000 more to come over the next five years. It is a brave idea, and one which will help the millions of Britons without computers, or easy access to an internet cafe. But it is quite rare to see the kiosks in use. In a decade or so, it is possible to imagine that Britain will have no phone boxes at all. There is already a hungry collector’s market for traditional British phone boxes.

They sell for more than £2,000 each. So the last kiosks may end up on the ground floors of Californian hotels. Then again, while mobile phones continue to crackle and cut out, cause health scares and remain too expensive for some Britons, there will be at least a small need for phone boxes. And for some people, the payphone will continue to have its own romantic and historical value. The era of the telephone kiosk is coming to an end.

BT, the British telephone company owner of the vast majority, has seen its profits from payphones fall by half since 1999. They’ve got thousands that don’t make enough to cover their cleaning costs. Between 10,000 and 12,000 are disappearing this year, and almost certainly more will follow. Only one adult in nine still uses payphones with any frequency, most preferring the convenience of their own mobile phone. The British public telephone kiosk was the first in the world.

It was introduced in 1884, only eight years after the invention of the telephone itself by the Scotsman, Alexander Graham Bell. The public call office, as it was known back then, was a typical Victorian invention, using new technology to make money from a society which was moving faster and faster, and had started relying on communications to a great degree. At first, public call offices were placed in shops, with only a curtain separating their users from the general customers. The callers did not feel comfortable with their conversations being overheard, and shop opening hours were restricted, so the telephone soon moved outside onto the streets. They were housed in wooden kiosks.

In 1924, a large competition was held to design a new, standard public telephone kiosk. The winner was Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Battersea Power Station and Liverpool Cathedral, and his design had a distinctly historic quality, a heavy shell of glass and cast iron, neo-classical columns at the corners, and a high arching roof. It was just a phone box, but it had hopes to establish itself as part of the British culture, like the British police helmet, post-box and double-decker bus, and all the other internationally successful symbols of Britishness, which were manufactured between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. The only mistake Scott made was over the colour. He wanted his phone boxes to be painted silver.

Pillar box red was chosen instead, because it was much more visible, and dirt didn’t look too bad on it. Between the mid-80s and the end of the 90s, far from disappearing, British telephone kiosks actually doubled in number. The commercial pressures created by privatisation pushed BT’s phone boxes into brand new locations. Meanwhile, other telephone companies began introducing their own kiosks. They started selling phone cards, phone boxes became more reliable, and the spread of the mobile phone simply seemed to increase the demand for telephones generally.

But it was not to last. Nowadays, BT is hoping to use its remaining payphones as internet kiosks. Since August, a thousand of these have been put up, with 27,000 more to come over the next five years. It is a brave idea, and one which will help the millions of Britons without computers, or easy access to an internet cafe. But it is quite rare to see the kiosks in use.

In a decade or so, it is possible to imagine that Britain will have no phone boxes at all. There is already a hungry collector’s market for traditional British phone boxes. They sell for more than £2,000 each. So the last kiosks may end up on the ground floors of Californian hotels. Then again, while mobile phones continue to cradle and cut out, cause health scares and remain too expensive for some Britons, there will be at least a small need for phone boxes.

And for some people, the payphone will continue to have its own romantic and historical value.